johnguinness's Diaryland Diary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The game was good
I volunteer to be in charge of the Super Bowl pre-game next year. I had it on all afternoon, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thought a serious interview with President Obama over the health care bill might have killed the buzz a bit.
Then there was the weak arrangement of America the Beautiful for Lea Michele. Listen to her sing I Dreamed A Dream (or whatever) from Les Mis, and see if you don't think she could have come up with a passionate and patriotic version of the song. Christina Aguilera was awful - she didn't just mess up the words, but spent the whole song tossing out every trick she could think of.
I have to catch up on the commercials. The Fox feed I had wasn't clear enough to watch the game, and the ESPN America feed kept talking football, so I missed the start of commercials whenever I switched over.
The half time show made me sad. I couldn't judge it visually on a 19 inch monitor with a weak feed, so all I had was the vocals. At first I wondered why Fergie's mic was turned off, then I wished someone would take it away from her. She was horrible, and when they mixed a few songs together, it was obvious that the other guys didn't need to be there - just let the auto tune technician do it all.
I wondered if I was being a bit harsh, so I did a Twitter search for "Fergie" and saw I was being kind by comparison. I did feel strongly enough about it that I stopped "following" one celebrity for saying it was amazing, and another for saying she really enjoyed it. Maybe Usher on a twenty foot screen was a game changer for people, but Fergie was still bad, drunk karaoke.
I watch almost all TV shows on video, with no commercials, so I have no immunity built up. Hearing a Pizza Hut commercial every couple of minutes during the Pizza Hut Pre-Game tore me up after a couple of hours. I talked myself down to driving to the dollar store for another $3.50 Tombstone, but they were out, so I got a $3.97 DiGiorno Rising Crust at the other store. It kept me away from expensive delivery, then made my stomach blow up a bit, and finally put me to sleep just into the 4th quarter.
It really does work on me like that. When I had a stressful job where I was working all the time, I'd come home, eat some pizza and ice cream for comfort, and fall asleep on the floor in front of the TV. Then I figured out what was happening, ate something healthier, and I'd have hours of energy to go play tennis and stuff.
The dreams just keep coming. There was one where I was involved with some athletes, and I was outside handing out checks to some golfers, and then there were checks to the athletes, I believe tennis players, who had I interacted with first. Then it turned out that the company I worked for gave the golfers big checks every day, and they wanted me to make trips out to the airport to hand them over when they flew in. I suggested the company do Direct Deposits. They suggested that I save the golfers time by flying from St. Louis to Kansas City every day. Then there was something with a cheap hotel room, and a gang that was after the money. Life would be so much simpler if people would listen to my suggestions.
Like the Contador website. Yesterday I posted a comment letting them know that only one English language cycling site wrote anything at all from the two long radio interviews Alberto gave. I said I'd seen bits and pieces of info about the defense in Spanish articles. I suggested that since a lot of people don't know the details, there would be a lot of surprise and confusion if the Spanish Federation declares him innocent with no punishment after suggesting he was innocent and could be banned for a year. I said maybe they should have brief summaries ready from the key studies and reports they'd financed, and could put them on the website if he's found innocent so people can write accurate stories instead of making crap up. Today Alberto's spokesman told TV2 Denmark that after the verdict is announced, they might explain some things. Score.
I have to scroll through cycling headlines to find articles about Alberto. I try my best not to even read the whole titles, but there are a few that caught my eye. One was the evil head of the UCI responding to allegations of corruption made by Floyd Landis. He said he would welcome any sort of investigation. He said it in the same way Lance used to say things, knowing no one would call him on it. But this is the Year Of The Rabbit, damn it, so call they did. That was in the form of a German lawyer who used to be part of the organization, very clearly stating why there should be an independent investigation with oversight by outside organizations. Hell yeahs.
And perfect timing. They made a rule that every bike frame model had to be evaluated, and a sticker of approval bought for $13,000, or the bike couldn't be used in a race. People fought them on the arbitrary, out of the blue, announcement. They declared that race radios (earpieces and microphones) couldn't be used any more, even though most riders and teams want them. Teams protested at a race over the weekend. They came out wearing them, and the UCI commissars bailed. The results aren't official now, but anarchy has started. I kind of miss being a part of it.
I had to walk over the past due payment of my water bill this morning to avoid one of those $25 red badges of shame hung on my door knob. The roads were mostly clear from salt and thaw, but a lot of the sidewalks had the layer of ice that gets slicker every day from the top melting and refreezing. My Spider Rubber sole Tevas probably can't handle the ice, and the track spikes would be terrible on clear concrete and asphalt, so I didn't consider doing a real walk.
The new lunar year continues to rock in small ways, evidenced by my fully functional windshield wipers yesterday, and the sold-out sale pizza at one place being surpassed by the better sale pizza up the road.
8:11 a.m. - Monday, Feb. 07, 2011
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|